Feedback modules, which appear ubiquitously in biological regulations, are often subject to disturbances from the input, leading to fluctuations in the output. Thus, the question becomes how a feedback system can produce a faithful response with a noisy input. We employed multiple time scale analysis, Fluctuation Dissipation Theorem, linear stability, and numerical simulations to investigate a module with one positive feedback loop driven by an external stimulus, and we obtained a critical quantity in noise attenuation, termed as signed activation time. We then studied the signed activation time for a system of two positive feedback loops, a system of one positive feedback loop and one negative feedback loop, and six other existing biological models consisting of multiple components along with positive and negative feedback loops. An inverse relationship is found between the noise amplification rate and the signed activation time, defined as the difference between the deactivation and activation time scales of the noise-free system, normalized by the frequency of noises presented in the input. Thus, the combination of fast activation and slow deactivation provides the best noise attenuation, and it can be attained in a single positive feedback loop system. An additional positive feedback loop often leads to a marked decrease in activation time, decrease or slight increase of deactivation time and allows larger kinetic rate variations for slow deactivation and fast activation. On the other hand, a negative feedback loop may increase the activation and deactivation times. The negative relationship between the noise amplification rate and the signed

We study the minimization problem of a non-convex sparsity promoting penalty function, the transformed l_1 (TL1), and its application in compressed sensing (CS). The TL1 penalty interpolates l_1 and l_1 norms through a nonnegative parameter l_1 , similar to l_1 with l_1 , and is known to satisfy unbiasedness, sparsity and Lipschitz continuity properties. We first consider the constrained minimization problem and discuss the exact recovery of l_1 norm minimal solution based on the null space property (NSP). We then prove the stable recovery of l_1 norm minimal solution if the sensing matrix l_1 satisfies a restricted isometry property (RIP). Next, we present difference of convex algorithms for TL1 (DCATL1) in computing TL1-regularized constrained and unconstrained problems in CS. The inner loop concerns an l_1 minimization problem on which we employ the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). For the unconstrained problem, we prove convergence of DCATL1 to a stationary point satisfying the first order optimality condition. In numerical experiments, we identify the optimal value l_1 , and compare DCATL1 with other CS algorithms on two classes of sensing matrices: Gaussian random matrices and over-sampled discrete cosine transform matrices (DCT). We find that for both classes of sensing matrices, the performance of DCATL1 algorithm (initiated with l_1 minimization) always ranks near the top (if not the top), and is the most robust choice insensitive to the conditioning of the sensing matrix l_1 . DCATL1 is also competitive in comparison with DCA on other non-convex penalty functions commonly used in statistics with two

G-equations are popular front propagation models in combustion literature and describe the front motion law of normal velocity equal to a constant plus the normal projection of fluid velocity. G-equations are Hamilton-Jacobi equations with convex but non-coercive Hamiltonians. We prove homogenization of the inviscid G-equation for space periodic incompressible flows. This extends a two space dimensional result in" Periodic homogenization of G-equations and viscosity effects," Nonlinearity, to appear. We construct approximate correctors to bypass the lack of compactness due to the non-coercive Hamiltonian. The existence of approximate correctors rely on a local reachability property of the controlled flow trajectory as well as incompressibility of the flow. Homogenization then follows from the comparison principle and the perturbed test function method. The effective Hamiltonian is convex and homogeneous of

We study the asymptotic spreading of KolmogorovPetrovskyPiskunov (KPP) fronts in spacetime random incompressible flows in dimension d> 1. We prove that if the flow field is stationary, ergodic, and obeys a suitable moment condition, the large time front speeds (spreading rates) are deterministic in all directions for compactly supported initial data. The flow field can become unbounded at large times. The front speeds are characterized by the convex rate function governing large deviations of the associated diffusion in the random flow. Our proofs are based on the Harnack inequality, an application of the sub-additive ergodic theorem, and the construction of comparison functions. Using the variational principles for the front speed, we obtain general lower and upper bounds of front speeds in terms of flow statistics. The bounds show that front speed enhancement in incompressible flows can grow at most linearly in the root mean square amplitude of the flows, and may have much slower growth due to rapid temporal decorrelation of the flows.

We study the initial value problem of the thermal-diffusive combustion systemu 1, t= u 1, x, x u 1 u 2 2, u 2, t= du 2, xx+ u 1 u 2 2, x R 1, for non-negative spatially decaying initial data of arbitrary size and for any positive constantd. We show that if the initial data decay to zero sufficiently fast at infinity, then the solution (u 1, u 2) converges to a self-similar solution of the reduced systemu 1, t= u 1, xx u 1 u 2 2, u 2, t= du 2, xx, in the large time limit. In particular, u 1 decays to zero like O (t 1/2 ), where> 0 is an anomalous exponent depending on the initial data, andu 2 decays to zero with normal rate O (t 1/2). The idea of the proof is to combine the a priori estimates for the decay of global solutions with the renormalization group method for establishing the self-similarity of the solutions in the large time limit.